Thousands of people have stepped onto the property ladder through the Government-backed Help to Buy scheme, new figures show.

The region has become a hotspot since the initiative was launched in 2013, with 2,981 people buying new build homes with a 5% deposit across the North East.

County Durham is in the top six areas for Help to Buy loan completions with a total of 803 households, including 710 first time buyers, benefitting from the scheme.

Other hotspots include Newcastle with 461 completions and Sunderland with 406.

In Gateshead, the Help to Buy scheme helped 266 people to buy their home and in South Tyneside 346 homeowners used a help to buy loan.

Northumberland’s new build boom has seen 293 first time buyers helped to get onto the property ladder and in North Tyneside 292 people bought a house thanks to the scheme.

But while parts of the region have benefitted from the scheme, there is still some concern the effects aren’t being felt nationally.

Help to Buy’s North East manager, Sophie Gilligan, said: “The Help to Buy scheme has helped hundreds of first-time buyers onto the property ladder.

“Without the scheme many people would have would’ve needed to save for a lot longer, or wouldn’t have been able to buy a home which was right for them.”

Cllr Roberta Blackman-Woods

Labour MP for the City of Durham and Shadow Minister for Housing and Planning, Roberta Blackman-Woods, said although the scheme has been a success in her own constituency the story isn’t the same across the UK

“I am really pleased to see that more people in my constituency of Durham are able to buy their own homes, particularly as the majority of them appear to be first time buyers,” she said.

“However, across the country it is a much bleaker picture and the scheme evidently has not gone far enough.”

Figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government show that in both the exclusive London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea and Richmond upon Thames, just two people have been helped to buy a home through the scheme.

Dr Blackman-Woods said the number of young people owning their own home had halved since 2010, and the average deposit needed to buy a house is £57,000.

She added: “It isn’t difficult to work out that in order for more people to be able to buy a house, we have to increase supply and build more homes.